Getting Caught Up: Andrew's Arrival and My Birthday

Due to my lack of internet last week and my crazy busy weekend, I haven't had a chance to update in a little while. During my one night stay in Pisa, I had a fantastic internet connection, so all of the pictures from my weekend in Milan through my weekend in Cinque Terre are posted.

Now, on to the updates :-)

On Tuesday morning, class was mildly chaotic. Because level C had so many students in it, the school decided to break the class up into two separate sections. I happened to be one of the people moved out of our old classroom and into a new one. At first, I was a little bummed, because I really liked Marco as a teacher - he was just so great at explaining things and making class fun. I will admit, though, that I was happy to be done with Sandra - she just got worse and worse. My new teacher's name is Lucia, and she's teaching us all day instead of breaking down the day into two separate lessons. Right away, I could tell that I was going to like her. She speaks very clearly and integrates all of the boring grammar and language lessons into fun culture topics. Last week we continued Marco's discussion on Rome and also had discussions on the environment (I now know how to say global warming and recycling in Italian!), and we learned about "abused" words and phrases of the Italian language - comparable to the American, "like", "you know", and "stuff like that." Marie, my friend from Belgium, is in my class as well. We always sit next to each other and work as partners on exercises.

After class on Tuesday, I went to the train station to wait for Andrew. I was pretty nervous that even with my two page word document of instructions, he would get lost somewhere between Pisa and Siena - but he made it! I was so excited to see him :-) Immediately, we headed to check into a hotel just outside of Siena. We were both starving, so our next stop was dinner - I had some four cheese gnocchi with truffle sauce, obviously yummy! When we were done eating,

I really wanted to show off the city, so I took Andrew to the main piazza to enjoy some gelato.

The next day was my birthday! (Side note - Thank you so much for all of the birthday wishes! I really appreciated them :-D ) My professor had a doctor's appointment that morning, so she cancelled classes - lucky for me! Andrew and I went to the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena's town hall, and climbed it's 100+ meter tower - La Torre Del Mangia. I saw my life flash before my eyes during that ascent and descent. The stairs were so skinny and tall, and the ceilings were sloped to a medieval person's height (Side note #2 - I am taller than a medieval person). Coming down was even worse than going up because there was only one stairwell for both groups of people. I will say, though, that the views from the top of the tower were amazing. We got a ton of great pictures - some of which are posted in the entry below.

Also in the Palazzo Pubblico is one of Siena's main museums, the Museo Civico. It's essentially a gallery of all of the old Renaissance rooms that were used by the ruling body, the Council of Nine. Andrew and I decided to check that out as well. One of the rooms, called the Peace Room, is especially famous for its frescoes which show the effects of Good Government on one side of the room and Bad Goverment on the other side. The Bad Goverment painting has all of the citizens suffering from the plague and fammine, while the Good Goverment one shows them all happy and farming.

Following my class on Wednesday, Andrew, Annie, Mara, and I went out to dinner and then over to Jennifer's apartment to enjoy her rooftop terrace again :-) Then, we met up with my other friends from OSU in the main piazza for wine and good conversation. While we were hanging out, a guy from my class named Robbie came by. He mentioned that he was heading to a local contrada party and that we should join. (Side note number #3 - Siena is broken up into 17 neighborhoods, called contrada. These neighborhoods are all represented in the Palio, Siena's horse race that I mentioned briefly a few entries ago. Leading up to the Palio in August, each contrada has a week of parties and festivals which are supposedly the highlight of the summer) I was SO excited to find out about a contrada party during the week - so far, the only ones that I had heard of were on the weekends when I'm typically travelling outside of the city. We all decided to head over to Bruco, the name of the contrada hosting the party. Robbie said that we would know we were heading the right way by the volume of the music coming from the party. We wandered down a sloping street, and then all of a sudden there was a huge garden packed with people. A cover band played some cheesy American music, and there were all kinds of stands - food, drinks, gelato, gambling. We stuck to dancing and people watching - which were both very enjoyable :-) I think my favorite part about the party was that it is truly something unique to Siena that is far from touristy or contrived. It felt like we were actually part of the city life and not just visitors.

Overall, my 21st birthday was a blast! More updates from last week to come, but for now I am exhausted!

Miss you all! Ciao :-)

Brittany